WEBVTT
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Mar, you know, Mario Odyssey is like, this game is really fun, but it's not adopting modern design sensibilities in like in terms of the emergent ideas that games can have.
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I was like, okay, what if we what if I took that and I applied it to the 3D platformer kind of thing?
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What would that look like?
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Hi there, my name is Stephen Lake, and welcome to the Examined Game.
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Today we're talking with Chris Wade, the game director of Big Hops by Luxhot Games.
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This is a brilliant platform, I absolutely loved it.
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And the question I had for him was like, what does it take to make a really successful platformer in 2026?
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The game borrow is, you know, you can see the influence of the likes of Mario Odyssey and those sort of 90s, early noughties rare games.
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Hops, the main character, is like very engaging, and most of the mechanics you're you're doing in the game involve his long, sticky tongue.
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But what I loved about this game was this kind of introduction of emergent gameplay, so it's sort of this weird blend of like Mario, Meets, Breath of the Wild.
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You know, making a platformer is a tricky thing because I think people have very high expectations, and Nintendo obviously have a little bit of a monopoly on this genre.
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So I want to talk with Chris about what it took to pull this game off.
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It's a really great conversation about ambition, about scope.
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Stick around, please subscribe.
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Thank you very much.
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About what came first and what came after.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So back in 2019, uh I was I was coming off the back of another game, Sasu Sports Club, and that game was like a local multiplayer kind of party game about floppy animals playing sports.
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And after that experience, I knew I wanted to make a single player game, and I kind of wanted to aim for more of like the core indie game player market instead of kind of like being super locked on to like Nintendo and being being a party game.
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Um and uh in 2019, I I kind of I had been prototyping a bunch of stuff, and and like none of the prototypes felt like they had legs or were working out.
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And I was like, okay, I need to instead of doing this like bottom-up design paradigm that I you know have been used to doing since school, where I would make like a little toy, you know, that I you could play and would be like, okay, this is fun.
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Like now what do I do as the structure of it?
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Um that had always been my process before.
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I was like, okay, I'm gonna try I'm gonna like flip it and try to design top down and think like what is like a big design goal that I'm trying to achieve, and like I'm gonna keep trying stuff until I can like achieve that design goal instead of just making toys and then putting a frame on it.
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And so I was like, okay, this this design problem I've been kind of aching about is like um I love 3D platformers, I like play a lot of them, but it feels like all of the design work happening in that space is like a callback to retro games and doesn't have like a modern design sensibility, and I had just played modern games in that space.
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Yeah, like even like you know, Mario Odyssey is like the most recent I had played at the time, and I was still like, this this is cool, like this game is really fun, but it's not adopting modern design sensibilities in like in terms of the emergent ideas that games can have, you know, when when their systems are allowed to interact with each other and the players allowed to like push on systems, you kind of create new stories through the dynamics interacting and stuff.
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And you know, as cool as Mario Agassiz is, it still doesn't do that.
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It's it's bespoke content, you know, laid out in a very, you know, very smart, well-done way.
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And so I played, I played Breath of the Wild around that same time, and they were like, let's like throw away the old formula of Zelda and like totally lean into this like emergent design, you know, systemic um emergence kind of paradigm.
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And I was like, okay, what if we what if I took that same thing that they did for Zelda and I applied it to the 3D platformer kind of thing, what would that look like?
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And what would be the you know, what would be the design paradigms of like structure of a game that would like most facilitate that stuff?
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And so that was like the start of the project.
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And I I mentioned like the top-down way of designing things.
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That was kind of when I would talk to prospective teammates or like the publisher we ended up signing with.
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Um, it was like, this is my thesis of the game, this is what I'm trying to do, and like every choice we're making is trying to like support this design idea.
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Um so that was that was kind of the first time I had done that, you know, in a high-level way.
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It sort of makes me think a little bit about like game like System Shock, you know, all those kind of those, you know, those it's like let's take the FPS and then add this, you know, um again emergent element to it.
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Do you did were people because it because when you exp when you say it like that, it seems like blindingly obvious that these things would go together really well.
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Um but did people were you able to get your point across when you were sort of pitching it?
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Was it understood?
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Um I think I think I sort of had something to show and and for people to see at that point, because that the first the first beginning of the project was in like June, and after after like three months, like you would the front the frog guy running around was there, you could like wall run and tongue swing on stuff, and there were like the backpack existed to put items into, and you could pick up veggies and like throw them at walls or at other veggies, and they would like interact in some way.
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And so I had kind of like the core interaction paradigm, like they were there, so I could show a video or I could talk about you know how it worked, and it it sort of I'd I would say at that point it was sort of like are you are you a a gamer or a game designer type person who like understands these concepts like when I talk about them?
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Because it you know, people now now people can be like, Oh, this reminds me of Breath of the Wild, or oh, this reminds me of Tears of the Kingdom, but at that time it was I could I you know I could trigger people who like understand those concepts to be like, oh that's what he's going for, but it wasn't like plain, you know, laid bare in a way that people would recognize, I said I'd say.
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And you obviously then would have had to go on to work extremely hard to sort of like pull off that idea, right?
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Um, but I guess I'm wondering how much of the the success of the the success is obviously a sort of relative term, but you know, in terms of you you you delivered, right?
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Right in terms of the design goal of the success.
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In terms exactly, yeah, that was was based on the sort of the originality of sort of blending those two, those, you know, bringing that element into platformer.
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Um what am I asking?
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Because again, it's that question that I originally said to you about like what well, how does one make a platformer in 2026 that's gonna sort of elevate and and get reach and have people sort of love it?
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And do you think a lot of it is just based on that original kind of like epiphany that you had of like okay, I'm gonna do this thing and yeah, I think done before?
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I think that's I think that's part of it.
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I think people connect with that and like that gets them excited about the game, but definitely the first like five seconds of the trailer or whatever is like, oh, it's a frog, and like he's using his tongue to like do stuff, and that was at the time that I started, I you know, I had I had like a game, a game design conceit that was exciting to me, but I knew you know the appeal of the game was really important to get people to you know care about it at all.
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And I'd I was sort of conscious of like to stand out in this market, you need to have sort of a you know, when people look at your game, they're gonna they're gonna say it's like this game, you know, this is what it's about, this is the idea of it.
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And I knew people were gonna say it's a frog game, and I'd I was intentional in that the fr the frog stuff was intentional in that I knew I needed a gimmick that was like the central thing in the game that all of the interactions were kind of built around.
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Not because I thought it was like super marketable, but because like to have to to make a platformer game, you just need like a million ideas all the time, you know.
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If you look at Mario, like they introduce a new idea every 10 minutes and then throw it out after 10 minutes and then you never see it again, and it's like that's so expensive to do, and like it's it's really only possible if you have a core gimmick because you can just keep pulling on this thread of whatever the gimmick is, and it's and so it's like the the frog the frog tongue was that for us, and um and I I know I recognize that that's like what people you know they connect with that on the high level, and then oh they're like oh this is these mechanics are like a little bit different than what I expect from this kind of game, and then like the highest level person's like, oh, this is gonna be like a speedrun game, or like, oh, this I'm gonna be able to like break this because there's so many like interconnected systems and stuff, and I want people to get to that level, but if they only reach the first one or the second one, it's still like interesting.
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And do you think then you need to be able to basically do both of those things to sort of like rise above, you know, that you can draw people in again with that sort of core like primary top-level concept.
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Yeah, I think it's all that depth.
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I think so.
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I think people like appeal appeal is just like you need that to get anybody's attention in any way at all.
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But if you don't have something under that that's like deeper, people are savvy and they'll just be like, oh, that's a frog game, okay.
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I'm gonna scroll.
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Yeah.
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I sort of think about why I made the perch.
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I mean, I think actually the the sort of hindsight comes to an internal vision, but I know the artwork as well, and I think it was just the expression on his face for some reason.
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And I think you know, when what me as a like I'm I always want to play a platformer, and then you know, having like game pass or whatever, I can kind of like without with very low risk try out a few different things, and then I you know, I'm trying to scratch an itch that's potentially unscratchable because I can't go back to being like eight years old again and playing Sonic for the first time, right?
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But um, it was again, it's just why I wrote you because it was like, oh, I I'm I'm I'm still playing this and I'm really enjoying it, and now I'm sort of like loving the thing, you know.
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That's great.
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Um so again, and that was kind of yeah, it was just the idea of like trying to and and maybe it's a hard thing to really put into words on how you bottle that, but that's sort of what I wanted to dive into.
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Yeah, I think I think we got in a in a big way we got really lucky in that I I said I started in 2019.
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There was like two years where I was able to kind of uh I was at a day job and I was doing it in my part-time, and I was kind of like frustrated at my day job, so I was taking all this like frustrated energy and like channeling it into a project where I was like in design control and like I the the project was like a VR game, and so there were all these limits of like what you're allowed to ask players to do in VR, and so I was like, I want all movement everywhere, you know, let the player do anything they want.
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Um and and then what you know, once we were able to sign with a publisher, we had all this, we had like three and a half or four years where we were just able to kind of really iterate and like dig into what we you know what we thought would make the game good.
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And it's a pr I would say a pretty rare experience where you get to kind of have really have enough time to do what you want and like make big changes and like turn the whole game over and like shake it out and be like, what's what is this game about really?
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Um and that and we got to do that, and I and I was just obsessed, you know.
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I I had so much time investment in it already and knew it was going to take a long time to finish, so I was like obsessed with making the right decisions instead of trying to get the game done fast and you know the a clock, an invisible clock wasn't really ticking for us, you know.
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I think that's why we were able to get things at as right as we did.
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Is there you know, what's that feeling like when you're sort of you you you're building something that I mean I'm assuming that once you finished it, you're extremely happy with, you know.
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Um to I'm maybe you know, for me, in my experience, there's always something left, you know.
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But to the the space between that and then finding out if it's actually really gonna stick with people.
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Um yeah, I think I I've definitely had projects where I finish and I'm like, this was compromised, you know, our vision was compromised in some way, and I'm like, and I need to like take a break from looking at it for a long time before I can like see it, see it with like the optimistic, you know, appreciation of like having made a thing just because that's so hard.
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But with the with this one, I don't I don't feel that as much.
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There's like there's stuff I want to fix, and I want to, you know, I I like I think I think games are unique in that you kind of make them with the people that play them, and and you can kind of react, continue to react to what how people, you know, what people are experiencing and like add stuff and iterate.
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And I like I like to do that, and we're definitely doing that, but um this this one's been pretty, I would say, pretty positive and like um I don't know, it's like hitting the notes that we were going for.
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Are you getting much feedback on oh sorry, Caron?
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I was just gonna ask, did that answer the question that you asked?
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It did, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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That was what was interesting.
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And then I the follow-up is like if you've had much feedback on people's responses to the characters themselves and the sort of tension that exists within the story, and it it feels like you've made some quite intentional decisions about, you know, the world and people's perceptions and on it.
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Um I was just curious if you've if people are speaking about that much beyond just the mechanics of the game.
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I've seen yeah, I've seen a lot of people talking about the story.
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I think um in terms of the dynamic between diss and hop, like I've seen I've seen people like really, really hating diss, and like it's obviously he kidnaps you and is sort of like bossing you around and is I would say much tougher on you than most especially you know, cartoony platformer, like he's pretty mean to you and and the dynamic you have is he really like kidnaps you in like an aggressive way and it's not like playful like a Mario game might make it.
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Um I mean maybe it maybe it is a little bit, but it's you know it's at its core, he you know, it's like against your consent, and he won't let you go home, and you know, he just keeps popping up to kind of like roast you, and so it's like a little bit more intense than than other games might be.
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And and we and we also made the conscious choice with a lot of the NPCs to not be sweet and cozy and nice all the time.
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It's like and the our reference point for that was kind of the original Animal Crossing, like way back on the GameCube.
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Um, so many of the animals there were like actually rude and kind of mean to you, and like over time, Nintendo has has um you know softened all of that, like smoothed out the edges so that like little kids don't don't cry or like have a bad time.
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And I get I get why you know why you might want to do that, but for me, that game, the original game still resonates because I still remember like I'm gonna I'm gonna like dig a hole all the way around this guy's house because he said like a mean comment to me and I want him to leave, you know, and it's like if everybody's nice to you, you don't have the same level, you know, the same height of emotional reaction to it.
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So uh for better or worse, it was important to me to make people like actually mean to you sometimes, not all the time.
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I there's one moment that stood out to me when you sort of finally bring the photographs to the uh the villagers in the desert, and there's like one of the nice like rabbit village towns people who's like, well, you know, maybe they're fake, you know, and it was just this kind of like just this like slightly irritating add-on, you know, whereas usually it's just like that would be skipped, and you'd just go straight to that like thank you for saving uh village, you know.
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Right, right.
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So I mean, maybe we could just go back a bit and just talk about, you know, and you know, I'm I'm sort of extremely sentimental about video games and think a lot about the things that the the earliest kind of exposure that I had to games that at the time I was just like thinking, oh, it's like left, right, up and down.
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But in hindsight, just sort of thinking about the I don't know, the feelings that they would elicit from me or what was drawing out of me, and I'm just curious what your sort of earliest, like what are your kind of childhood games, the specifically the ones that kind of set you on the path to what you sort of wanted to go on to iterate here with Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
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I think I mean the the OGs for me, my I have I have an older brother who's like 12 years older than me, and I remember watching him play like Mario Bros.
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on like the the SNES, and I you know I would probably try it, but I was a little bit young when he was playing it.
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Um and I think the first one I really got into was like the GameCube era of games, um, which which I I mentioned Animal Crossing, I think Wind Waker playing.
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Well, I got no, I guess I guess I'm going late.
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Like the N64 would have been my first one.
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That console when I got it came with Mario 64.
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So like I played that one a ton.
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I played Banjo Kazooie 1 and 2.
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I definitely got my hands on Crash Bandicoot and Spyro somehow.
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Um and it's and it's interest it's interesting because I've been you know I've been making games for now for like 12 years, and it's not like the entire time I was making games, I was like, you know, a big platformer head and and like taught, you know, telling my friends how how excited I am to make platformers and stuff.
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I've I've made you know I've made like a range of genres.
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Um but I think Nintendo games, there's like I s I still feel a sense of nostalgia and like this this like magic.
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They have this I I think of them as having this like really interesting design sensibility where um they're like their process is like they make they make the gameplay interesting and fun and like you know inventive first and then they like build a world around that and there's there's something there's something so like unique and focused and that it almost also feels like aesthetic for them as an afterthought, whereas now, or or I would even say most companies, it's like you need to have above some threshold of fidelity of graphics before you can even make a game or something.
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And Nintendo is so like they're like finding a gameplay route and like pulling it out at the root instead of like thinking of it as a um I don't know, they they care you know they care about the underlying idea and and what works about it and what's interesting about it more than any other part of it.
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And um it's it's I'd I'd I admire that sensibility and and aspire to that more so than I would say I'm like trying to recreate any specific experience I had as a kid with a game.
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I just think a lot about those, and it's interesting you said the mechanic there at first and then the aesthetic or the character, you know, and again that these types of characters like Mario become literally like timeless.
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Right.
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Yeah, they're iconic now.
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They're iconic, but it's like he's the face of the game, not the mechanic, but then I mean, literally the fate, like obviously people are thinking about if they're gonna play a Mario game, they're gonna be playing some kind of a platformer, but that that aesthetic they build around it then becomes the thing that you can just carry over and iterate on and turn into a movie or turn into a comic or a cartoon series.
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Um I think about that era as well, you talk about the N64 and Crash Bandicoot, and then that that move away from like middle-aged plumbers to you know because it because again, I think it's like once you've had a genre that's existed for so long, it seems like obvious that well, of course, like you there will be games where it's like a kind of cutesy animal that speaks and there's a certain level of apparel, but I guess I just wonder why that particular approach has again keep using the word iterated so well over time.
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Because again, there's the pl there's there's the mechanic behind it, but then usually it gets wrapped in that same yeah, yeah, it's it does.
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I think I mean one one element that stands out to me is like this this appeals to kind of kids and a broad audience, and like you know, it's easier to make like a a mascot that is appealing to like a younger audience if they're an animal and uh a plat the the genre of platformers as a game is like not not all of them you get to kind of have a camera that like orbits at kind of a close range around a character so you're like looking at them all the time, right?
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And if I'm think you know, but go going back to the 90s, like if we're thinking of game console sales as like you know, we need to appeal to kids and their parents buying them gifts or whatever, it makes sense to me why it would be such a you know that would be more appealing to kids than like I I think of I think of the moment that Uncharted happened, like um Naughty Dog's game before Uncharted one was Jack and Daxter, which was like another, you know, platformer, and they the fur the first one was sort of this cartoon colorful, you know, everybody it's goofy and and it's like a comedy, you know, they're they're it's a buggy comedy basically, and then the sequel to that game was like for teenagers, and he like swears and grows a little goatee and then the third one's like full on bearded you know comp vehicle combat whatever and then and then it seemed like they realized like actually we don't even need to be cartoony anymore we can be like photorealistic now and then un you know uncharted's like the the for that studio the first game for adults art you know arguably um so that's I mean that's the line I see of like why so many of them maybe have the cartoon colorful look.
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I suppose if you take that even further once they've done with Uncharted they were like well we can actually take this even though the the bleakness of the last of us right yeah true that's true um it's not even it's not even just adults now it's like grizzled you know um cynical adults exactly because it's like Nathan Drake is he's sort of at least kind of fun and you know uh a little kind of bubbly whereas it's this kind of like unkempt unshaven um which is obviously ended up it was still and again that's brilliant though that they can sort of take it that that that far yeah yeah I love I mean I love that arc for games and I think I think like going back to hops like when I look back at the lineage of of 3D platformers I see what you see that it's like kind of samey and they're like doing a lot of the same things and like the reason they're doing them is like a business appeal kind of level and you know us getting to make this game it's like okay you know I'm a I'm a bit allergic to the sackarin nature of all those like cutesy stories where everybody's like happy and soft or whatever.
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So like what are what are some like modern cartoons or get you know game stories or whatever that that like you know work in the same kind of setting but like have a have more depth or like have more three-dimensional characters and stuff.
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And so you know even even though for us like moveset and level design and like collectible you know aspects of how we how we like place and how many collectibles to have and stuff we're like obviously referencing the design of those games like for the world building and story and stuff we're like not even looking at at those old games it's like you know it's like Avatar the Last Airbender or like you know Psych Psychonauts maybe you could group with those somehow but it's like much more um much more like a cartoon you know or a or a movie like a Del Toro movie or something that uh has more common with that than like a Mario game.
00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:52.160
And again just coming back to you know I was thinking about you know I know in like the late 80s early 90s the idea was that it was going to be like the well some people felt the point and click adventure game was going to be the thing that was going to take off and I it obviously did but it it stayed small in another way.
00:24:52.400 --> 00:25:16.480
You know and they were bringing big names in to sort of like voice actors of from movies to participate and like Steven Spielberg to do with the dig with LucasArts like that they thought that that was going to be the form of um video game that mass was going to like reach the masses and then obviously Doom came out and everyone kind of just like gravitated towards that.
00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:54.319
Yeah um and not that it didn't kill the point and click it's just it's a way smaller genre right the thing is with the platformer and again I think it's been around for so long that we just assume that it's like well of course it would be here but I think there must be a reason why it has survived and and stayed relevant for so long and I guess firstly my question would be like what was that in those sort of those those early 90s games you know and then and then onwards actually as I get into 3D you know what what do you think it was about just the sort of the basic art of literal platforming you know that yeah drew us in.
00:25:54.640 --> 00:27:38.319
Yeah yeah I guess um I mean movement you know movement is inherently fun to do and I guess I'm contrast like I my my first jump is like to contrast it it's like you know if if games like Doom or shooters like are you know are the most engaging stuff at the time in terms of just like raw mechanics like what would why would people be playing platformers and it's like they're too young or it's too it's too violent or they're not allowed and people want you know the the one-to-one movement engagement you know that it that it just feels good to do and move around a space um that would maybe maybe that's like the lowest level but there's also like the the world building like the you know when when a game is 3D it like inherently has like a feeling of immersion and like there's like a world to explore and things are like hidden behind walls and stuff so it's you know it's it has like a different kind of feeling than a point and click or you know other other previous kind of games that would have existed and when you add characters into it then it starts to feel a little bit more like real and if if they're motivations and your motivation as a character like you know are believable and and like worthwhile then it's like okay now I'm like building up a sense of place in my head and this is gonna like live with me longer than my session or whatever which I don't you know I don't remember that being my experience of Doom as an example you know and and it's like you're you're ripping and tearing you're like trying to get to the end of the level and move on.
00:27:38.480 --> 00:27:48.720
It's not you know you're not exploring at your own pace necessarily I sort of love that answer.
00:27:49.119 --> 00:29:16.240
I guess with that in mind I'm wondering what a you know out of all those games that you were playing back in the day which sort of characters and the the sort of NPCs as well as sort of most iconic and if you know why then why yeah I d I defin we definitely like talked a lot about the feeling of Zelda games more than like like the feeling of being in a Zelda game than than we did about 3D platformers and like Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time like it's like they feel they feel like the characters exist for their own sake separately from you and they're like doing their own thing and 3D platformers like old old ones from that era have a tendency to feel like this guy's standing here so that he can tell me about you know the eggs in this castle or whatever and whereas in Zelda it's like you know this this guy's like this guy's a bartender and he's like here to tend the bar and you're like annoying to him and um and it feels like the I don't I don't know if this was intentional but the way the dialogue is written is is like vague in a way that like implies a larger world without like closing off the corners with like a like a defined answer about who people are or like does that make sense?
00:29:16.640 --> 00:29:19.759
It it does I I do know what you're talking about.
00:29:19.920 --> 00:30:09.599
Yeah I'm just trying to think another common another game that people talk about this in is Dark Souls where like you meet an NPC and he'll only say like one sentence to you and the sentence like implies you know like a history to this place that you're in without actually telling you anything about the history but it like makes you wonder and and you know tells you that there something h some big event happened here but you don't get to know what it is and you have to like want to find out and maybe there's like an item description later in the game that will like imply slightly more about it but you still don't get to know versus like I I feel like a lot of you know like a spyro or something it would be like they want their narrative Bible to be like completely explained by by stuff in the game to be found.
00:30:10.799 --> 00:30:16.480
That's not a I don't mean that as a dig on spyro it's just like a it's like a narrative design you know philosophy.
00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:47.759
And you write I can I can sort of picturing that in in like Ocarina of Time or whatever you know compared to say Toad you know who's like there to that was like tell you next level it's maybe it's maybe like the Zelda is like a medieval you know a medieval fantasy that's like Japanese codic or whatever versus Mario is like so fantasy that like I can't feel grounded and I don't I'm not like looking to build the world in my head.
00:30:49.680 --> 00:31:02.480
But that's that for for us for us with Hops we were very inspired by Zelda and like it was important for me as a as like the writer of the game to be like you know why are these why are the rabbits in this desert?
00:31:02.640 --> 00:32:16.880
Why did they make this town you know whatever conflict they have needs to needs to feel like it could be real and like each of the individual characters needs to have like a relationship with the conflict and with each other and like um it's it's like not mar Mario games don't do this because they're not about that stuff and you know you could argue that hops is about the gameplay and like it's not about that other stuff but to to me it's like it all works together to create a sense that the world is is real and worth exploring and like obviously the gameplay has to be good enough to merit you to continue to play it but like if you add in you know the world matters and is grounded and you can connect with it and like your interest in it will be rewarded with detail and nuance and like you know resonant resonant story you know I I and I say story like uh not as like capital S story where like the plot you know makes sense and works out but where this character that I met like it matters that I talked to them and like I I will find out more about them later if it seems implied that I will you know what I mean?
00:32:19.759 --> 00:33:31.759
I also think about just Link and Link's sort of temperament you know I just wonder how much that I'm trying to think I always felt like Link there was a kind of slight not indifference but he's he's pretty sort of like chilled you know yeah like he doesn't get easily uh rattled which you I guess you would as a hero but almost he's almost a little bit too um chilled out about other than a gasp here and then about the things that are unfolding um yeah that that was a conversation we had kind kind of for a long time in development like when we started adding dialogue options and like you know dialogue with NPCs like whether whether Hop would speak or or like the extent to which he spoke there there's some there's some moments like when you get dropped off in a new world hop often just like talks to himself a little bit to like you know communicate how he's feeling or whatever and we were like some people on the team were like it's we this is weird like you know the game feels so Zelda inspired but like Link would never talk to himself or like Link doesn't have dialogue options and I was like yeah I think it's I think it's that's you know that's hop.
00:33:31.839 --> 00:34:06.640
Hop would Hop is different from Link in that way you know where he's he's like nervous or scared or um you know wants to wants to add a quip in a way that Link wouldn't is Hop I'm sort of trying to think about how and again that idea like he kind of seems to be like he's obviously motivated by the the parts you know that he's trying to collect and then becomes sort of invested in the the issues of whatever you know the the particular town that he's in.
00:34:06.960 --> 00:36:22.400
But again he's sort of um he doesn't sort of and again it's like the way that he interacts with this like he's not kind of drawing a clear line between like who's good and who's evil I mean it's sort of obvious who those people are but he kind of engages with either side in a pretty kind of like friendly uh way but without it it's not like he's naive he's not naive though I don't think yeah yeah I there's a couple things I want to respond to in there I think what the first one is like I'll I'll tell you how I thought about writing the story which is I'm I'm super allergic to prescriptive moralistic kind of like story story structures or like story intents and so with the with this one I had from from the beginning of making the game basically I had I had this like narrative question in mind that was like how do we balance individual pursuits versus like social responsibilities and I didn't this this was a question I was dealing with in my life like start you know starting a business moving I used to my family's in Cleveland I moved to Austin to kind of make this game and I was like what is an okay amount for me to like pursue my goals you know in a selfish way versus like how how much do I owe to my my family and the people around me um and I and I was I was like reckoning with this question and I was like this would be an interesting thing to explore in a game and I don't I don't know the answer and I don't have an answer that I think is correct but what if what if like each world of the game if if the conflict of each world was kind of about this question and each character you know in that conflict found their own answer that to that question and like you as a player kind of follow along and kind of you know there's nowhere in the game is that question asked to you but it's like implied by Junior's relationship to his mom or you know the by the other by the other um scenarios and like for me it was cathartic and like interesting to explore different answers to that question.
00:36:22.559 --> 00:36:52.480
And then also like the the endings being instead of being like succinct and clear about like what is correct it's like everybody in the situation is left with like a weird feeling of like you know we had you know there's a resolution now but it's not really what I wanted or expected and like it's it's explicitly not happy and everybody is like satisfied you know in the sense like that and I don't want to do spoilers but you know that he ends up kind of he feels a little isolated after that.
00:36:52.800 --> 00:37:00.400
Right yeah right calling out so that so like that that was the way that I wrote the story was like I have this question.
00:37:00.559 --> 00:37:26.639
I know I don't want to leave the player with an answer that feels correct and like the one that I'm trying to communicate to them but I do if I give enough perspectives on this and I like spend enough time in this headspace like I think players will feel feel that there is a you know there there are themes to like think about and so that's that was the that was the first thing I wanted to respond to was like that's how I thought about the story.
00:37:26.800 --> 00:37:29.760
Um I think I maybe lost the other thing I wanted to say.
00:37:30.000 --> 00:38:41.519
It was I was I think well I was asking about hopp and his sort of interaction with people whether it be this or the townsfolk or the kind of values stage and his his the way that he did engage with people and respond to people and yeah yeah yeah I think I we we had a strong idea of who hop is as a character like he's he's um he's not he's explicitly not judgmental he's he's always like eager to do his best to do things um and doesn't if he gets like knocked down a peg he's just gonna keep going um but he's not he's not like brash and bold and tough he's just sort of like he's bouncy he's sort of like Spongebob in that way um and I think meeting you know meeting and and I'll I'll I'll add this like all of his interactions with people who are like objectively bad guys like when you meet the head of the oil company and he sort of is like oh no I need help um Hop sort of always has his ulterior motive of like I need these airship parts and like you're the guy that's gonna give me the airship parts so I kind of got to help you.
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:48.639
So that's that's kind of some amount of the you know complexity.
00:38:48.800 --> 00:40:32.159
I don't it's not nuance exactly but it's just like there's there's competing motivations and that that would that was something interesting to explore like in the in the ocean section the when you meet the guy that's in charge of the oil rig it's like a lot of players and and play testers or whatever would be like hey I don't like this guy it like really bothers me that I have to help him and it it like makes me feel like I'm on the team of the oil company or something and it's I d I see not that I don't mean this as a dig to those people but it's kind of like a media literacy problem where like somebody that like somebody existing in a game that has a perspective that you don't agree with doesn't mean that the game has the perspective that you don't agree with and that was like a weird that's that's been a weird thing to navigate like some people still feel that way now that the game is out that's been interesting I guess then on that note I was wondering about and again it it's like it's a culmination of everything coming together right you know the the mechanics and then the emergent element and then the level design and then the characters but how much you think people getting invested in Harp and his story and his engagement with the different townsfolk you know that he's coming across is is really strongly contributing to people's um because it doesn't feel like a just a mechanics game you know it feels like it goes pretty it it feels like there's been quite a lot of time and attention given to that sort of world building and the characters um I guess the question is yeah how much of that is carrying over to audiences and in terms of like drawing them in or responding positively to the game.
00:40:32.559 --> 00:40:38.559
I mean first thanks like it it was it was a lot of it was a lot of like thoughtful effort you know over a long time.
00:40:39.360 --> 00:41:30.000
I think I think people are connecting with it like all of all of basically all of the reviews that I'm reading on Steam and and like um you know press press reviews and stuff like that everybody talks about the story and how they're surprised surprised by how much of it there is and how how much the voice acting adds and stuff and it's you know I it's it's weird because it is you know it does it does feel like a gameplay focused game just because of how many mechanics there are and like how deep how deep they are and stuff um but I think holistically like the package is so much stronger like as a as an experience it's like much much more interesting and stands out against you know any anything else that might be considered similar to it as a result of that stuff.
00:41:31.599 --> 00:41:43.679
And I think just as an example some of the press reviews compare the game to Mario you know like mainline Mario games and say like there a few of them are like Nintendo could learn something from this game.
00:41:43.840 --> 00:42:24.480
I think without all of this other stuff like the narrative packaging and the world building being grounded it would be easily and correctly dismissed as like just another great platformer controller whatever kind of game because it it need it needs all of those things like the pacing of the game needs the story stuff to not let you get bored or like oversaturated on the on the puzzle platforming stuff you know do you think actually I I want to I'll the first question is like how important was it to you to make sure you did like not just fully voiced but like really really really good voice acting.
00:42:24.639 --> 00:42:42.239
Thank you thank you because like yeah I'm I'm pretty certain that it's like it's it's if people put in the platformer genre like if Nintendo can still do the huge games without voice acting like then there's no there's not necessarily a pressure to have to do that right to tick a box.
00:42:42.320 --> 00:42:45.920
You clearly made a can a decision to to implement that.
00:42:46.239 --> 00:43:17.760
Yeah there's a funny story there which is that the pot the publisher that we worked with we worked with them for about four years and I ended up splitting ways with them but while we were working with them it was sort of like every maybe four or five months they would our our producer would come back and she would say like hey I think this game would be really elevated by having VO in it what do you guys think about that and I would kind of bristle and be like I don't platformers don't do VO like that's you know that doesn't really match how I think about the game.
00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:29.119
And she did she did this probably four times where she would bring it up and really be like accepting of my response and be like you know whatever you guys want to do I just really think it would be good.
00:43:30.320 --> 00:44:00.320
And you know I kept I kept saying this and eventually I got like earworm you know brainwormed a little bit or whatever you want to call it and was like you know what I do think the story has like reached a level where it would benefit from this and like I'd I was sort of I played through Psychonauts 2 when that came out that was like partway through our development and was like man this game I turn I at one point I turned off the VO volume or whatever or maybe I muted my TV or something and I was like I am not connecting with anybody at all now.
00:44:00.559 --> 00:44:02.800
This is such a different, you know, game experience.
00:44:02.960 --> 00:44:13.199
And so we meet we ended up making not at not at the not at our publisher's sort of directive, just like I had this experience and I was like, let's make some, let's like make a test.
00:44:13.280 --> 00:44:24.559
Let's take a 10-minute chunk of the game that's like written and we have the cutscenes kind of laid out and let's like get get just like our amateur buddies to like record the the five characters or whatever.
00:44:24.800 --> 00:44:33.440
And and so we did that and we made 10 minutes of it and recorded a video of it and then like put it in our team chat and sent you know sent it to the publisher.
00:44:33.599 --> 00:44:36.960
And I was I was so converted by doing that process.
00:44:37.039 --> 00:44:52.880
It was it was like crazy how much better it was and that was just with amateur you know amateur VO just like people who had never acted before so um so it wasn't like that's a that's an interesting counterexample of like that wasn't there from the inception of the game.
00:44:53.039 --> 00:45:08.079
It was like we we were taking so seriously the story and the world building and stuff that at some point we were like maybe this would actually be another level and you know we just did a test of it not not kind of having a strong sense of whether we would do it or not at that point.
00:45:11.199 --> 00:46:01.360
I think you know and again if we come back to say like characters like Toad was like he might just have like two lines and like I'm pressing A whatever to get the full sentence to have appeared so I'm not seeing it typed out and I'm pressing straight away again just to move on to the next one you know which is definitely a habit as a certain of of say like platformers but again when you've got that actual voice doing it you can like sit back and again let the story sort of unfold yeah for you yeah I think even even if you are going to skip half the line I think hearing a voice kind of builds a character for you in your head a little bit more and even if I can read faster I you do still hear that first couple of words that they say while you're reading out the line and I I per I personally when I play games with VO I don't let the whole thing play out.
00:46:01.519 --> 00:46:05.360
I am sort of like reading at my own pace but it does still add for me.
00:46:07.199 --> 00:46:31.760
Just so I haven't missed anything is there any other sort of um inspirations in terms of what you've sort of pulled into this game other games or approaches or stories movies whatever you know I know you talked about the platformers and Zelda yeah let me I we have we have sort of like a giant mood board thing.
00:46:32.079 --> 00:46:50.000
I think the most non-obvious stuff is like our one of our artists Johnny like tries to pull all of his character and art reference from stuff outside of games and so there's like there's some part of this mood board that's got like spring breakers by Harmony Corinne on it.
00:46:52.239 --> 00:47:21.679
Or like there's like for the desert we were trying to like mash together the idea of like um in America there's like a section of middle america where um along highways there's like these insane like um a million gas stations and like McDonald's and Exxon like overlapping each other and it's like and it's like cursed and we were like how do we make how do we make like a desert city with like that kind of vibe?
00:47:23.039 --> 00:47:52.000
We talked about a lot of like um Cohen brothers movies just like scrolling around for like the uh the sort of desert stuff or the yeah for like Raising Arizona um we we talked about Raising Arizona as like the characters being so like wacky but also like like really loving each other and like being really earnest even though at the same time they're kind of like acme cartoons.
00:47:52.239 --> 00:47:53.440
Are you familiar with that movie?
00:47:53.760 --> 00:48:22.800
I am yeah it's one of my sort of early early exposures to the uh not just the Codan brothers but exposure to a movie that isn't like a blockbuster you know right right right yeah I'd I only watched that recently like maybe maybe a year and a half ago or something um and so now I kind of have the context of like why Johnny was referencing it but it's a great reference and the music in that film is absolutely flawless as well.
00:48:22.880 --> 00:48:55.360
I see full throttle in there as well for the um so I guess the answer to the question then is there's there's there's obviously a lot of references you know to this yeah I think it's I mean it's easy you know I I think the shorthand is like Mario and Zelda because that's like the most obvious like in the first 10 seconds of gameplay to talk about and over over six and a half years of making stuff you just like there's so there's so many things like it's like impossible to talk about all of them.
00:48:56.639 --> 00:49:23.119
And actually yeah this because I there was something else I wanted to touch on and it's it's sort of like the obvious thing and I know you've spoken about it but the the decision for there not to be combat in the game and I was interested you talked about as something like I don't know if it's like a hard and fast rule but you know that there's every 15 seconds there's something for the player to do and you've basically removed what would be a really lovely well not love but you know a really helpful way of of giving them that engagement.
00:49:23.280 --> 00:49:31.280
And but if you again don't mind just give me the sort of the broad overview of why you made that decision and then we can talk a bit more about it.
00:49:31.599 --> 00:49:47.199
Yeah I think I that there's kind of two reasons like early on early on in in brainstorming like all the all the frog tongue mechanics and and seeing like okay there's there's just like so many ideas that we can come up with here of of like what you can be doing.
00:49:48.800 --> 00:51:08.800
At the very beginning I was sort of like it would be interesting to not do combat and just really rely on all these things and like fully flesh these out and explore them and there at after after maybe a year in development by myself I had all of these mechanics and I was like wow this is so many things and like I kind of feel like this is more of a puzzle game than like a combat game and I'd I knew I wanted it to be more of an action game like if people saw it at a glance I wanted them to think action game rather than puzzle game um just just because I think that's more you know I wanted the takeaway to be excitement instead of like thinking you know I need to like carefully like move things and my per personally like in Zelda games I'm not as into like pushing blocks around even though I am really into puzzle games but in terms of an adventure game I'd I'm not as into like pushing blocks around as I am to like an action game kind of equivalent and I did I did this and and I'm I'm also in general I would say like I'm kind of over combat in games unless it's like amazingly well done like you know I I played uh I've played like hundreds and hundreds of hours of dark souls and I think those games are amazing.
00:51:08.880 --> 00:51:58.719
I think Elden Ring's amazing and I've played so many not not to dig on indies but like I've played so many indie games where the combat is like a three hit combo that like feels kind of jank and like the animation's mid and it's I didn't I didn't want to be in that category and like there's there's so many there's so many game developers in the game industry whose expertise for the last decade has been like combat game feel you know and for me it's I I know that I can make movement feel feel really good and I can make like you know action-y movement-y stuff feel really good but combat is like so out of my wheelhouse and so expensive and like it's not enough to have like three enemy types you need to have like 15 or something for this if if this was going to be a game with combat.
00:51:58.800 --> 00:52:46.000
So it was just like wow the scope is crazy there and we don't have the expertise on our team and like what if we could you know what rather rather than be like a mid version of it let's like do something completely different and like let's be really careful about checking our pulse to make sure we do have enough stuff and that that's kind of the 15 seconds I was talking about was like um when people design levels now in tr in um modern games it's like hallways with combat encounters and then at the end of the hallway it's like a story moment or something and um if you don't have those combat encounters it's like way more expensive because you need to make like novel stuff to do but it's for my sensibility it was worth it and I think hops feels really unique as a result of that.
00:52:46.400 --> 00:52:52.480
So I guess you made that decision kind of pretty early on and I I'm the assumption is because you just knew that that wasn't a part of it.
00:52:52.639 --> 00:53:07.440
It's not like it felt like a missing tooth of the game because you just built you were building from scratch this thing that just like it wasn't even an option anyway and thus everything else got to kind of rise out of it it's its absence.
00:53:07.599 --> 00:53:08.079
Yeah.
00:53:08.320 --> 00:53:28.960
I think I I think over the life cycle it was like the first two years of the game was me just like making a bunch of ideas of what gameplay could be but not making any structure and I for the in that time I could hand the game to somebody and they would play for an hour and then they would hand it back to me and be like this is really cool but what what are you gonna do?
00:53:29.119 --> 00:53:43.840
Like what's the you know what's the structure of the game going to be and that whole time I had never made any combat stuff and was like if I can get somebody to play for an hour with no direction just like a bunch of stuff to do like that's a pretty good sign that that's not missing.
00:53:44.079 --> 00:53:58.480
And um there there was one point also in development where I made I made kind of an insane spreadsheet of like every 3D platformer game I had played which which was probably maybe 20 of them or something.
00:53:58.719 --> 00:54:39.039
And I I make a column of like the different feature each column was like a feature that platformer you know each of these platformers have and it was like collectibles and combat was one of them um like a grounded story um linear game structure I'd I'd you know I could I could pull it up and tell you more more whatever but I basically I was analyzing the genre to see like what do all of these games have in common and you know is there features that make them more successful than other ones and something I noticed was that I couldn't find a single example of a platformer that didn't have combat as like it's as like part of its gameplay loop.
00:54:39.199 --> 00:54:46.400
And I was like okay maybe just by virtue of not having that that's like what is something that makes hop unique and that's good.
00:54:49.039 --> 00:55:09.840
Absolutely I mean I love that about the game it's interesting I mean this is just really specific to me although probably not you know having been someone that like my favorite sort of zones in any game was when you were sort of finally safe from the combat and you'd like playing like Wonderboy whatever I just hang out in the the village like for as long as possible.
00:55:10.159 --> 00:56:04.480
You know and with a game like this um that's not like uh you know that's not an issue it's not like a perilous thing and actually just the thing there's like the the the towns are are like massive playgrounds as well in and of themselves and they're not just like a kind of um simpler kind of safe haven where you just pop to the shop and top up on things but it's it's like it's its own kind of like multi-layered level all at the same time um it's totally fine if it's not something you can or want to talk about but and just in terms of that process of sort of being dropped by a publisher um I guess I'm just sort of wondering what that does for one's kind of like either self-esteem or like outlook on the future and then obviously what I'm more interested in is how one gets over it to then carry on because you kind of like well you clearly just had to and you did.
00:56:04.800 --> 00:56:05.440
Yeah.
00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:15.920
Yeah I can't I can only I can only get so specific about it but it was not if it's you know we could we could this can not be a part of it as well I was just curious.
00:56:16.239 --> 00:57:08.079
I don't I don't I don't mind having it in I think there there was some there was some stuff that happened that made it not that big of a surprise that that might happen and so I had kind of planned ahead like what is our what are we gonna do if that does happen and so when it happened it was jarring and like weird and like um and I was definitely bummed out and like you know there there's an ego hit you take of like okay you know this this set of people doesn't believe in our game it do are we gonna are we gonna like decide that they're right or decide that they're wrong and like if we decide that they're wrong this can be like a huge motivation for us to like prove them wrong out of spite and like really work hard and let it light a fire under our ass.
00:57:08.159 --> 00:57:09.440
And that's what we did.
00:57:10.960 --> 00:57:24.800
And and then like in terms of in terms of like how we actually move forward and dealt with it um it was sort of a matter of like asking people on the team to take a pay cut and like kind of rolling off people.
00:57:26.320 --> 00:57:54.880
Nobody was like dropped immediately when when we were you know when we stopped working at that publisher but it was we did sort of had to like accelerate the rate at which people would like roll off the project and um and yeah it was it was sort of a you know it's like a logistics problem to solve like anything else and I luck a luckily when that happened I had like made a plan before and was able to pull it out of a pull it out of a drawer and be like okay this is what we're gonna do.
00:57:55.119 --> 00:58:05.440
And the team because I was not because I did not freak out about it the team was like this is this seems fine okay Chris knows how to handle this.
00:58:06.719 --> 00:58:27.760
And I had my private freak out time you know that wasn't that wasn't in front of the team so yeah it's just how it's just again hearing about that you know the the way that one sort of gets through that and again it's it's as I know from my own experience it's not necessarily the that's not necessarily the thing that's gonna kill the project.
00:58:27.840 --> 00:58:34.559
It's like the way that we ourselves as creators respond to it and choose to move forward.
00:58:35.199 --> 00:59:05.920
Yeah I think the the great I mean the great luck of the game and of that you know that moment or whatever was that the game was very close to being done then so it wasn't you know it wasn't like we didn't we hadn't figured out what it was or it wasn't like oh no we still have like a year's worth of content to make it was like all of the game was there and it was in rough shape and um and we also had like a trailer that was like done you know at the moment that that happened.
00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:30.159
So it was like okay we can you know we have to we have to really hit our deadlines now uh but you know we're set up well to succeed and like um sort of being there so something else that happened there was like that that spite that motivation like um I was also able to now just like do whatever marketing stuff I wanted to do.
00:59:30.239 --> 00:59:49.679
I didn't have to check with anybody or define a strategy with anybody or like uh we were we were kind of commonly told like we need to wait for like the best possible opportunity to announce the game or like do you know do the best possible marketing event instead of doing as many possible marketing events as possible.
00:59:49.840 --> 01:00:11.440
And once I was able to take over you know we could we could actually start just trying stuff and you know that's I feel I feel like the viewers of this aren't going to be as interested in in the you know the the marketing prop you know process and data and stuff but that's that was a really great benefit.
01:00:12.639 --> 01:00:51.199
Well and it clearly worked whatever you decided to do you know I guess just sort of finally ish is just again a question that came to mind was going back to your experiences of playing other games if there was sort of any just really kind of standout moments or things like perhaps it was sort of playing Breath of the Wild for the first time and seeing how they sort of what they're bringing into that that kind of just like has has really stuck with you whether it's been like four years ago or how many decades ago and then I'll sort of ask the same question about experiences that you've had watching others play your game um and how they've engaged with it.
01:00:51.920 --> 01:01:16.000
Yeah I think I think Breath of the Wild is is like such a there it's such a it's such a big game but it's the things that stand out to me are like the small moments that probably almost every player that plays it like has these moments but it feel it feels like you have this like crazy ownership of it and that it's not designed for you.
01:01:16.159 --> 01:02:00.880
I'd for me for me the first moment where I felt like this was there there's like a moment where there's like a boulder over a cliff or something and then there's like moblins uh having a little camp or whatever at the bottom of it and they're not they're not like fighting people or doing anything bad but you see this boulder and you like go up and naturally want to push it and it's not even that you know that there's moblins down there but you push it and then the boulder like wrecks their camp and like rolls over them and like destroys the camp and they start freaking out and it's like this isn't this this moment is both designed for you to find and it's a result of the systems and like there's you know the way that I did it is I walk up I push the boulder oops I didn't realize there was a camp you know oh this is crazy.
01:02:01.760 --> 01:02:56.320
But you also could like find it from any other angle or like you you know you could never see the boulder or or like um maybe the boulder rolls down and like misses everybody and then they like wake up and see you and they come you know they come fight you and it's it's like such a such a perfect little moment of of like old Zelda just by design of its systems never could have had a moment like this because it was very regimented and like this level of chaos basically like requires letting go of of so much control of the experience um and that's like that's a old old school game designers would not do that because it's it's like risky and maybe maybe there's also like performance concerns or like you know maybe a game cube couldn't handle all the dynamics required to like have the situation happen.
01:02:56.480 --> 01:03:24.880
But I I love to I love to see Nintendo flip into the like you know emergent mindset because it's that's you know that's like the thing that's special about games is is like your participation in the experience and the simulationism of of like you know the game world a book a book and a movie can't do that stuff because it's you know prescripted inherently I love that answer and I remember that moment as well.
01:03:25.280 --> 01:03:48.880
Nice yeah you found that too yeah yeah um and again it's that sort of thing like because obviously you know people compare a game like that to like s you know they took Skyrim and then blend it with these things but it's like because of the because of just how agile you know Nintendo games are that you can sort of because obviously you could never have that style of experience in Skyrim just because of the the stiffness of it.
01:03:49.039 --> 01:03:49.360
Right.
01:03:49.519 --> 01:04:02.880
Um you'd have other ones but and then so I guess it's the same question for you in terms of watching other people if you've sort of just got to exp what what's been the sort of most satisfying thing to experience of people playing your game.
01:04:03.119 --> 01:04:42.000
Yeah yeah uh I think I think like people posting video of something happening and it's it's either like they they like are trying something weird or they're um there's like speedrunners playing the game right now and just last night somebody posted a video of one of the void levels where gravity gets weird and they like um this was the second void world and they like like run up and like use a a launcher thing that they're supposed to use to kind of go across some platforms and then there's like a whole sequence of level where you like end up kind of going on the bottom side of a big platform.
01:04:42.320 --> 01:05:13.039
And the first launcher they do they just purposefully fall under the level and like hit a trigger that flips the gravity upside down so they just skip like 70% of the level and it's like I had I both had no idea that you could do that and watching this video I like wasn't I didn't know what the clip was going to be so I was just like totally surprised by by like the possibility space and like the the ingenuity of like trying to like break the game over their knee is so is always so fun to watch.
01:05:13.199 --> 01:05:39.920
There's a there's a guy that made a video called the chaos of big hops or something like that and it's like he brings every one of the veggies to like one place and then the video starts with like the most chaotic cursed combination of things happening and then he does like a a slate that's like five minutes earlier and then he's like slowly accidentally like making this chaotic mess of stuff.
01:05:40.159 --> 01:06:01.199
Yeah I'm ha I'm having fun reading written reviews too I think I think like video is really exciting because you like you open the video and you have no idea what's gonna happen and I like I like written stuff because people peop when people play it and then they go away from it and they like Coalesce their thoughts.
01:06:01.280 --> 01:06:24.320
It's like they when they look holistically at the game, they tend to eat even if they've not read my writing about it, or like you know, don't know how I'm thinking about it, they like tend to get to the same answer about like what is special about the game, and that's I don't I don't know that I f I find that really rewarding and satisfying.
01:06:25.199 --> 01:06:38.719
I think the thing about that and my experience from from filmmaking is it's like you you you sort of have to put in all the work and the hope that that'll happen, and then there's really no guarantee.
01:06:39.119 --> 01:06:39.360
Right.
01:06:39.519 --> 01:06:44.880
And then you let go and it's and it belongs to them, and like hopefully they get what you wanted them to get out of it.
